Iron Man: Futurist
by The Red X
Summary: What if Tony Stark barely survive his encounter with The Hulk and the destruction of Stark Tower? What if he had become a broken shell of a man, and after 10 years... Decided to believe in the future again. A Dark Knight Returns for Iron Man.
1. Part 1

_Things don't always work out… Do they?_

The news anchorwoman spoke to the cameraman, microphone firmly in hand. "Stark Tower has been destroyed.", was the most important sentence she said. "The Incredible Hulk seems to left now, heading off to only God knows where.", was the second most important sentence.

_You do your best. But sooner or later, things come crashing down._

"Tony!!!", War Machine, Jim Rhodes, cried as he heaved aside huge pieces of wreckage with the strength of his powered armor. "Tony, where are you?!" He moved aside an entire concrete wall.

_I used to be a futurist._

"Tony!", Rhodes exclaimed happily as he discovered the mangled and beaten Hulkbuster Mark II armor; the giant red and gold monstrosity, beaten and dented. "I'm coming, Tony! I got ya!", Rhodes said as he pried away pieces of the armor, clawing to get to his friend inside.

_I don't believe in the future anymore…_

"Oh… Oh, Tony…", Rhodes said sadly. "Tony…"

-Loading…-

10 years later.

Ten grueling, miserable years later, Virginia "Pepper" Potts looked at herself in the mirror, pleased to find she had aged rather well. Or at least, she looked a lot better then her boss…

It was a beach house, tucked away somewhere in the Caribbean on a pleasant beach with crystal clear water and palm trees. The kind of life most people strive for.

Pepper walked outside of the beach house, and walked a short distance to the large garage just outside, and she expected what she saw.

_Clang!_

_Clang!_

There it stood, pounding away at a piece of metal over an anvil with a small hammer.

He wore a very light suit of "armor", but it wasn't for gallant fighting, the armor was to keep its wearer alive. All was covered up and protected, save for the wearer's head, the armor was helmet-less. It wasn't even gold and red colored for the most part, the thick body suit mesh that covered serveral motors and couplings was a shade of dark grey. The only exception to the dull color was the various pieces of red-plated equipment on the suit, and occasional dulled gold colored coupling. A few wires and tubes connected over the medical equipment, occasionally snaking into and out of the gold couplings around his chest.

The armor did provide some degree of strength; otherwise its wearer might not even have the strength to get up in the morning, much less form metal by hitting it with a hammer.

The figure heaved the hammer over his head and swung it down to beat the red-hot piece of metal on the anvil again.

_Clang!_

"Tony!", Pepper shouted over the anvil clang.

It looked at her. It was what was left of Tony Stark, once the Invincible Iron Man. His mustache had grown into an unruly beard but his hair was still black, with the exception of a bright silver streak of hair over the temples. His eyes, however, weren't as sharp and focuses as they used to be. His eyes were groggy and drunken.

"Breakfast is ready, Tony." Pepper crooked her thumb over her shoulder and pointed back at the house.

"Yeah…" He set the hammer down next to the metal. "I'll be there in a moment."

"You were up all night drinking, _again_, weren't you?", she asked somberly.

He didn't answer.

Tony believed the armor, built to sustain Tony's life after grievous injuries at the hands of the Hulk, was the only thing keeping him alive. It could pump his blood, jumpstart his heart, push air in and out of his lungs, and functioned as a mini-dialysis machine. Years ago it was modified to also function as a replacement to Tony's liver.

The armor had been, oh so affectionately, dubbed, the "Iron Lung" armor. For obvious reasons.

-Loading…-

"Thanks, Pepper.", Tony said as Pepper handed him a mug of hot chocolate to drink later that night.

"Don't mention it.", Pepper said.

They were both sitting on deck chairs, hand made of iron, which was the result of Tony's days spent as a blacksmith. Above them was a beautiful night sky filled with stars against the deep black backdrop of space. It was the kind of star-filled sky you never got to see in the city.

"Jeff loved his boats new cleats.", Pepper said. "Says thanks."

"Great.", Tony sipped his hot chocolate, gingerly holding the mug with his over-powered gloved hands. "Nice moon.", he said of the half moon that hung in the dark and star-filled sky above them.

"Yeah…", Pepper said looking up at it too.

"I've been there before, ya know.", Tony said.

"Who says ya can't go there again?"

Tony looked over at her with one raised eyebrow, as if saying: "Please… Give me a break." But he kept that comment to himself.

"Come on, Tony. Don't give me that look again."

"Pepper… It's been ten years…" Tony set his mug of hot chocolate on a table between the two chairs. "Most time I've spent outside of this suit was a few hours."

"Not true.", she pointed out with a wave of her fingers. "What about when you sleep?"

"That doesn't count. That bed of mine is practically a pod or something. All those backup life support systems rigged into it."

"Still… Can't spend forever in that thing."

"Pepper…", he rolled his drunken sailor's eyes off to the side. "We've been over this. I took a big green fist _then_ several tons of wreckage to the chest. Heck, I barely _had _a chest when Rhodes found me."

"Yeah yeah yeah, I know all the facts.", she dismissed as she took another sip of her own hot chocolate. "But you also had the Extremis crawling all over you before we even pulled you out of that armor."

"Not this again…", he held his face in his gloved hand.

"Tony, you used to be so confident in the Extremis being able to heal you that you wanted to fight Wolverine! Maybe it's healed you by now."

"No, Pepper…" He removed his gloved hand from his face.

"For all we know, you're totally recovered by-"

"Drop it.", he said firmly. "I'm stuck like this." He picked up his hot chocolate again. "For a good long time…" He sipped.

Pepper paused for a moment and leaned back in her seat. "What happened to you, Tony? You used to have so much hope in the future."

"The future?", he asked her as he turned to look at her. "Another couple of decades trapped in this damn armor... What good is the future to me, Pepper?"

"But you don't have to be!"

"The last time I tried to take this off for too long, I nearly died. _Again._ I can't keep being given second chances, Pepper…"

He stared into his mug of hot chocolate.

-Loading…-

The next day Pepper was in the kitchen, reading from a cookbook and feeling very victorious in her quest to cook a decent dinner. Of course, she'd had plenty of practice over the past ten years she'd spent caring for and tending to Tony Stark.

_Clang!_

Tony, meanwhile, was pounding away at a piece of iron again with his hammer. He too had had plenty of practice over the last ten years. His garage and beach house were filled with various metal pieces of furniture that he had hand pounded himself.

_Clang!_

_Clang!_

_Clang!_

_KABOOM!!!_

Pepper was surprised by the blast; it shook the house on its soft soil. "Tony?" She looked out the kitchen window and saw that Tony's garage was completely in flames. "TONY!" She ran out.

As soon as she stepped out the back door to run to the burning wreckage, a sharp white pain licked across her left calf muscle and she fell into the sandy ground. "Agh!" Ugh…" She looked back at her left calf and saw it bleeding.

"I would'a never guessed…"

Pepper looked up and saw a familiar face, wrapped in a costume of black and red. "Spymaster?!", she gritted while she reached down to hold her leg.

Spymaster, garbed in his in his black and red costume, stood above her holding a pistol with silencer in one hand and resting his other palm against a detonator on his belt. "I would'a never guessed Iron Man was practically a cripple living on Paradise Island with his secretary."

"How'd you find out where we are?!", she demanded as she rolled onto her back and scooted away.

"Because it's what I do…", he said. "I was going over some old leads and by luck I got a whiff of some freak in an space suit pounding away at metal all day. I got curious." He took a sickeningly casual step forward. "Ya know, the whole world thinks he's dead. Lots of people wished they could'a been the ones to finally off him." He lowered his pistol and pointed it at her head. "It's a job I'd offer to do for free."

Tony felt hot sand and ash against his face. Suddenly the Iron Lung armor he wore weighed so much more somehow. God, he felt so old so sudden.

He forced his eyes open and saw a blur of bright blue light, the sky. He must've been pushed outside by the blast. His ears were ringing, his head spinning. He watched the blue blur come more into focus, revealing clouds and thin traces of smoke floating on that blue sky.

"Get up.", Spymaster said.

Tony heard that. 

Pepper winced and sat up. "You nuts? You shot my leg!"

"Get up anyway.", he said waving his silenced pistol.

The armor… the light armor and suit known as the Iron Lung… It wouldn't respond.

Tony forced his neck to move his head, dragging his cheek across the sand, to look back.

His Iron Lung was destroyed. Equipment dented, read-out screens cracked, hoses torn. Back up systems were beeping and busing themselves trying to engage, but that was about as steady as a 1945 Buick that sat in the garage for about a decade. His life support was down.

"I'm a goner…", he laid the side of his face in the sand.

Pepper clawed against the wall of the house and tried to pick herself up, wincing and hissing as she pulled her injured leg up and put her weight on her good leg. "Ugh! Well… You gonna shoot me and get it over with?!"

Tony's eyes opened again. "Pepper…" , he muttered.

"Shellhead was a smart guy, before he decided to give the Hulk a hug, that is.", Spymaster said. "And rich. He's got to have something valuable here."

Another wince. Hot blood down her leg and over her instep.

_The Iron Lung's destroyed. I got hours to live, unless someone drags to me my vault of a bed. Can't move… Muscle atrophy? Doesn't matter… Pepper…_

"Show me where the goods are.", Spymaster said.

Pepper gritted. "Go to-"

_PFFT!_

"AGH!", Pepper yelped after a second bullet pierced into her left thigh.

"Pepper…!", Tony moaned. He dug his heavy gloved hand into the sand, like moving dead weight, and began to push himself up. The armor… The armor wasn't as heavy as Tony thought it would be.

Pepper leaned heavily against the wall, closing here eyes and gritting her teeth in pain. An involuntary tear escaped one of her wet eyes.

_She always did want me to take this damn thing off..._ There was emergency release switch behind a slide-away panel that would disengage the whole armor if he needed medical treatment right away. Something that had actually happened to him a lot… back in the good ol' days.

Tony punched the button, releasing seals and locks all over the Iron Lung. And a gold substance, a bright beautiful gold, began to flow over Tony's skin as the dead armor began to open up…

"I guess you're just gonna have to tell me now…", Spymaster said regrettably.

Pepper just glared, sweat running down her brow and her short red hair draping over her rage filled eyes.

"I got two more limbs to choose from…"

"You killed Tony…", she gasped then held her breath again.

Beat, beat, beat, went Tony's heart. The gold flowed. He got up. It hurt, his whole body was sore. He propped himself up on a knee as the backpack of his armor falls away, ripping free tubes. His chest plate fell off, pulling the rest of the armor with it. Gold flowed. His lungs, his real lungs, filled with air on their own. Gold flowed.

"Yeah…", Spymaster said. "It was a long time coming too." He held his gun to her head. "And it'll happen to you too."

Tony's hammer that had been in his hand during the explosion laid half covered in the sand. A gold hand reached down and picked it up.

"Well?", Spymaster asked. "You gonna talk?"

Pepper slumped to the ground, yelping from the twin shots of pain in her legs.

"Well?", he asked.

"Not… A chance." She spit at him, the spittle landing on his waist.

"A shame." He pulled back the hammer of the pistol for effect.

Pepper's eyes suddenly went wide and she was breathless. But… She wasn't looking at Spymaster… "…Tony… You're…" She was looking directly behind him.

Spymaster spun around.

And Tony Stark, bathed from head to toe in gold, swung his hammer into Spymaster's chest with all his might!

A sickening "Uckh!", a sort of wet hack, was the only sound that escaped Spymaster's throat as he hit the ground.

"Pepper!", Tony yelped as he dropped the hammer and stared down at her.

Pepper… was just as shocked. "Tony…" She looked him over from head to toe.

There were still a few old medical connection couplings in his flesh, but those were taken care of easily enough. The gold Extremis formed a solid suit over him, like some sort of gold latex paint. His chest was not collapsed, nor smashed, nor inside out, or any deformity of any imaginable kind. …Aside from the medical couplings and the exit ports for the Extremis, that is.

"Pepper…", Tony looked down at his own body too, staring at his chest and his upturned palms.

"Oh my God…", Pepper uttered. Then she smiled. "Told you."

-Loading…-

"You should be proud of yourself…", Pepper said as she trotted herself into Tony's room, cracking the door open and peering into the dark room. "Spymaster wont talk cause he can't talk. You cracked his sternum pretty nicely."

She was only wearing shorts, as her legs were encased in flexible splits and support leggings to assist her injured legs in walking. Ah, the wonders of Stark International's medical division, back in the day.

Tony was sitting at his desk, alone in the dark, staring down at his body with his back to Pepper. The Extremis had retracted itself back into the hollows of his bones earlier.

"He'll live though…", she said as she looked over at Tony's bed, a pod-like structure snaked over with wires and machines and tubing. "Got enough medical equipment to heal a third world country over here. He's wrapped up and tied down in the guest room. We need to find out how he found us, and…" That's when she turned to look a bit closer at Tony as he sat in his chair.

He was nude, staring down at his body, which was cast deeply in shadows, with his hands turned upwards towards the ceiling. The large cast iron seat, designed to hold him while in the Iron Lung, must have been cold and uncomfortable. But, Pepper imagined, Tony most be savoring in the sensations of his own body free of that iron thing…

"Tony…?"

"I'm fine, Pepper.", he said softly as he spoke through the thick beard.

"We need to find out how Spymaster found us, Tony.", she paused. He continued to sit in the deep shadows and deeper contemplation. "But… You probably want to be alone tonight, don't you?"

Tony slowly nodded.

"Good night, Tony…", she said. "Spymaster's all tied down for the night and secured. Call me if you need anything, alright?"

"Pepper…", he called out to her from the back of his throat.

"Yes?"

Tony slowly turned and looked at her over his shoulder, his blue eyes seeming so fragile and distant in the dark. "Thank you…"

Pepper, as she had quite a few times before in the long decade, felt a swell from her softer side. She closed her eyes, bent over slightly, and kissed his thick bearded cheek. "Good night, Tony…" She turned, and walked out while quietly shutting his door behind her.

Tony, was left in the dark again. He reached over to a drawer, and from within withdrew a bottle of Whisky and an empty glass. He held both in his hands, his real human hands.

And he stared once again at his familiar demon in a bottle, his old friend, his long lasting adversary… His most hated aspect of himself… And set the glass down before chugging strait from the bottle. The wonderful foul liquor burned down the back of his throat, a sensation so familiar as to be comfortable.

He set the bottle down with a gasp, and leaned over his desk.

He sat for a moment, thinking as the hard liquor ran through his veins without the Iron Lung to protect his liver.

Then he opened another deep drawer in his desk, and withdrew a large stack of newspapers…

Ten minuets later, the whisky was pushed away to the corner of the desk while the newspapers took up nearly every other square inch of space on the desk. Some of the newspapers were only a few years old, others the entire decade.

Tony grabbed his bottle again, and held it firmly in his hand as he looked over papers he had carefully organized.

"STARK TOWER COLLAPSE" was one of the headlines before him. "HULK RAMPAGE CONTINUES!", was another headline in front of him.

"WORLD MOURNS THE PASSING OF HEROES SLEWN BY THE HULK"

"HULK HAS FLED EARTH AFTER SEEKING REVENGE, HOW WILL WE REBUILD?"

"JUSTINE HAMMER RETURNS AND SEEKS CONTROL-", that headline was cut off by another paper which read "WAR MACHINE SLAUGHTERS INNOCENTS!"

"HAMMER NAMED NEW CEO OF STARK INDUSTRIES. PROMISES TO REBUILD"

"SPIDER-MAN ATTACKS SHIELD HELICARRIER"

"JIM RHODES RELEASED ON FALSE CHARGES."

"RETURN OF THE MANDARIN? WHAT WILL THIS MEAN FOR CHINA?"

"MANDARIN ELECTED EMPORER OF CHINA"

Tony winced as he continued to watch history catch up to him through the paper's headlines. He whipped his head up and took another swig from the bottle.

"STARK INDUSTRIES REACHES RECORD BREAKING PROFITS"

"FIVE YEARS LATER, A WORLD WITHOUT TONY STARK"

"UNREST IN CHINA"

The liquor split over Tony's lips and down his beard.

"STARK INDUSTRIES GOES PUBLIC! OWN YOUR VERY OWN ARMOR… FOR A PRICE!"

"TITANIUM MAN AQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES"

"SEVEN YEARS LATER"

"TEN YEARS LATER. A WORLD WITHOUT THE HULK."

Tony threw the bottle away from his face, splashing the alcohol across the pages of the newspaper as he leaned over the papers weakly.

"What has happened…", he choked up sadly. "Without me…?"

Five minuets later, he was staring at it again. And this time, his envy was thicker then usual.

The original red and gold Iron Man armor.

This happy little beach house, one of Tony's very first safe houses, held a duplicate of his very first red and gold armor. It was so old and obsolete compared to his other armors, and yet infinitely stronger appearing then Tony himself.

He stood in front of the armor as it rested in its rectangular crevice in the wall on display.

The iron face, so heavy, so emotionless, so much stronger then him. He found himself envying it and it's strength. He yearned to feel that power again, that raw logical power. He never could dream of it again while trapped in his Iron Lung, but now… Now he was free and standing nude before the armor once again, just like he had so many, many years ago…

He glanced at his face in the mirror of the small workshop. His hair and beard unruly and thick like a castaway, a grey streak of hair across his temples, his eyes so distant. He smelt of liquor and tears.

He looked down at his body, touching his bare fingertips to his bare chest. The Iron Lung was gone… Could he still… Could he still wear the armor? The real armor?

He looked up at the armor again. Staring at the emotionless eye and mouth slits. So powerful, so secure.

"What…" He reached up and set one shaking hand against the armor's cheek lovingly. "What have I let happen to you?" He hung his head low in sorrow. "To everything I own… To my world?"

…

He looked back up at the armor slowly… But with different eyes.

-Loading…-

Pepper suddenly woke up in her sleep, hugging her body pillow and cocooned in her sheets, to the sound of a loud metallic thump outside. And she groaned to herself as she shut her eyes with a glare still on her face. "Stupid Tony… Already drinking away your new body… Stupid.", she muttered, assuming the metallic thud was Tony's late night drunken swaggers.

She heard another metallic clang, like dropping a socket wrench. But she dismissed it in her slumbers.

"Stupid…"

And then silence. Sweet peaceful silence.

And then the muffled roar of jet engines!

Pepper's eyes shot open again.

-Loading…-

"Computer diagnostics… All green!", Tony yelled from somewhere over a low roar, the drunken slur in his voice somehow receding and his voice much clearer.

He felt it all around him. The Extremis nano-tech virus, and the armor. He could feel them both around him.

Extremis was all over him again, which was becoming once again a familiar feeling. The armor around Tony was so old, one of his first models, so old it was run by a mix of hand gestures and combination buttons to be pressed by the tongue. It had been long ago rebuilt for nostalgia's sake. Now Tony felt the Extremis flow and interconnect with the suit.

With the gold Extremis connected to the armor, and the Extremis connected directly to Tony's once magnificent brain, Tony could once again _feel _every sensation and detail of the armor as…

As if…

As if he literally _was_ Iron Man again.

And…

The engines roared.

All systems were green.

And it felt so good… Like the return of your first love.

Suddenly the door to the workshop slid opened and Pepper rushed in, wearing her pajamas and her hair was a mess. She stopped dead in her tracks just beyond the door with wide eyes and a dangling jaw.

"Tony…", she spoke breathlessly, her words almost flooded over by the roar.

It looked back at her, with eyes that hadn't looked on anything in ten years…

Tony, in the Classic Red and Gold Armor, levitated just over the ground with his jet boots roaring triumphantly. Wires trailed over the armor and to various computers and monitors, like cob-webs all over an old locked away treasure.

Pepper smiled. "Tony!"

-Loading…-

Stark Industries Headquarters.

"Gentlemen…", Justine Hammer spoke to the board of directors from his plush leather seat. "I believe this adjourns this weeks meeting?"

The old bird had somehow come back. The last time Tony saw Justine Hammer; he was floating in a block of ice through space, preserved in a cryonic sleep of sorts. How he had come back had never been officially confirmed, but the common story was that his ice coffin had been retrieved from space at some point in the long decade since Tony Stark's death. And with Iron Man dead, it hadn't taken too much work for Hammer to finally achieve what he'd always wanted… Ownership of Stark Industries.

And Hammer, in his pressed suit and neatly cut white hair, couldn't be happier for it. Profits were through the roof, after all. And Stark International, soon to be renamed Hammer International, was growing larger every day. Not even the growingly defined wrinkles on his face could hide the smug sense of achievement and arrogance that Hammer enjoyed every day.

Outside, Hammer's poor mistreated secretary reached over and picked up her ringing phone. "Stark Industries, Executive Floor. How may I help you?", she asked with a distinct _lack_ of energy.

A pause as she listened to the person on the other end of the line.

"I'm sorry", she said, "but Mr. Hammer is in a board meeting right now and can't be disturbed. May I take a message? Okay…", she said while wearingly reaching over to her memo pad to jot down yet another meaningless message in her dead-end career.

She began writing and repeating aloud what she heard the person on the phone say, not really paying attention. "Uh huh… Coming back to take what's mine… Hammer you sniveling weasel… Your hairpiece is ugly too. With love… Tony Stark." And after she wrote the name, her head perked up with attention. "Tony Stark?!"

Back inside the conference room, closed behind heavy redwood doors, the phone on the conference table began to ring. The Caller ID identified the caller as the secretary.

Hammer sighed to himself as he picked it up. "I told you…", he howled. "I'm not to be disturbed in my- What? WHO?! You can't be serious!"

The other board members looked up alarmed.

"Lock that door! I want security up here on the double!", Hammer ordered to the other members of the board.

-Loading…-

"I can't believe I used to call this flying." It was slow and noisy, he felt a strange vibration in his feet from the boot jets that he hadn't felt in years upon years. This was, to his recall, one of the very first flight-capable armors after all.

But you never really forget it, and it never really stops being so incredible, no matter how much you wanted to know where that annoying vibration from your left heel's thruster was coming from.

He looked over to see his reflection in the glass windows next to him, and the reactions of people noticing him past the windows. And it felt great.

-Loading…-

Men in armors stormed into the conference room.

The armors were a bluish grey in color, but were very similar to the Guardsman Armors worn by The Jury, back in the day. Although, these armors, had a gently glowing disk-like object on the center of their chests. Despite the repulsor emitters in the palms of the armors, they all carried rather large and powerful looking rifle weapons.

They were the mass-produced and public version of the infamous Iron Man. Hammer had stooped so low as to sell the technology to the public and private sectors… For a high price that is. Going public with the great power of Stark Technology, the same technology that fed S.H.I.E.L.D., was something Stark had vowed never to do long ago. And wisely so, no potential villain could be entrusted with such power.

But in a decade without Tony Stark… Well, there's no one to say otherwise.

Four of these armored guards stormed into the room, each taking a corner of the room. Two other guards on the outside of the room shut the large redwood doors and closed off the room.

"Hammer, is this really necessary?", one of the other board-members asked, referring to the guards.

"We _are_ one of the world's largest weapons manufacturing companies, after all!", Hammer said as he stood up next to a guard. "What would you expect?"

"It's probably just a prank call.", another board member said.

"Or a trap.", yet another board member pointed out.

"All the more reason to take this seriously if it is a trap.", Hammer said. "And if it's a prank, the prankster will be sorely punished."

"Um…", a suddenly pale board member said. "Hammer? It's not a prank.", he said as he pointed behind Hammer.

Hammer's lips grew stiff, his fist clenched, a lump developed in his throat, and he quickly spun around to look behind him. And he saw exactly what he expected to see…

The Iron Man.

There he stood, shinning in his classic gold and red shining bright in the night sky. He hovered in the air above the roaring blast of his boot jets just outside the thick window. Through the thin eye slits of the helmet, bright blue eyes glared at Hammer, like some sort of monster peeking through the hole in his crate.

Hammer looked next to the guards, who already had their rifles raised and trained on Iron Man.

But the Iron Knight paid them no attention as he held out his hands and pressed them to the glass. The repulsors of his palms lit up and fired, and the thick reinforced glass immediately began to crack.

The guards opened fired, which only helped the glass to crack and break all over.

The board members dove to the floor for cover.

Hammer held up his arm over his eyes, shielding his old eyes from the bright lights with his Italian-suit covered arm.

Suddenly it got very bright and the glass shattered away. Then the light faded quickly.

"Hold your fire!", Hammer said as he waved his arm away from his face, flinging small shards of glass off his suit. "You should know better…"

Iron Man stood on the air, on the pure thrust and power beneath his own two feet. He extended one foot, and cut the power to the thrust just before it stepped foot onto the ground. Then he cut the power to the other boot and stepped safely on the carpet of the office, just before the edge of the broken window.

Hammer, in his frail but strong old body, stood strait up and stared eye-to-eye with the metal beast that had barged his way into the office.

"Sir?", one of the guards asked as he held his rifle trained directly at Iron Man's helmet. "Shouldn't we open fire?"

"No…", Hammer said. "Those armor piecing rounds weren't made for _this_ kind of armor.", he said simply as he took a step up to the Iron Intruder.

And they both glared at each other. Neither had seen the other in nearly 15 years.

"Stark?", Hammer asked.

"Hammer…?", Tony replied from behind his very favorite wardrobe.

"How are you even alive?", they both asked each other at the same time. And then they both blinked in surprise.

"The last I heard you were frozen in a block of ice.", Tony said.

"I was found. The last I heard you were dead from an I-Beam in your chest.", Hammer replied back spitefully.

"The news of my demise was greatly exaggerated.", Tony said.

"So I can see…"

They paused silently again, and continued staring down one other.

"Tony Stark… Is that really you?", one of the board members asked as he and the rest slowly got up from the floor.

"Alive and kicking, Mr…", Iron Man said as he looked up and noticed the board member. "…Whoever the hell you are."

"_That_, is Mr. Robinson. One of _my_ board of directors for _my _company, Stark.", Hammer said.

Iron Man looked back. "The company's mine. Always has been, always will. I've come to take it back." He practically spat out the last sentence.

"I don't see your name on it.", Hammer said.

…

"...My name _is_ on it.", Iron Man said.

"Well- Er-", Hammer hesitated. "Yes, it is. But the company is mine." He pointed a finger up at Iron Man. "You died! You're dead, you hear me? And if it wasn't for me this company would have fell strait into the crapper!"

"Wrong.", Tony said from behind the mask of the Iron Man. "_You_ were _never_ supposed to have this. And now that I'm back…" The glare from behind the narrow eye slits never failed. "Prying it from your old bony hands is on the tippy top of my to-do list."

"You'll be hard pressed to do that." Hammer was as strong and stubborn as ever.

"I've pressed harder." And then Tony turned around and stepped right off over the edge of the broken window's ledge. And his boot jets whined for only 3/16th of a second before firing, the thrust supporting Iron Man's weight as he stepped onto the hot air beneath his feet and increased power to the thrusters. Iron Man began to fly off into the night sky…

Hammer swallowed a lump in his old wrinkled throat, then swiftly turned around and marched past other board members and guards. "Meeting adjourned!"

Two of the armored guardsmen quickly pulled the door open and Hammer stormed out first.

-Loading…-

"Computer!", Hammer yelled as soon as he stepped out of the elevator and entered the huge computer core. The room had a very strong breeze from the countless cooling fans and air currents surrounding the endless miles of fiber-optic cable and red-hot computer CPU cores. An endless sea of petrabytes and petrahurtz, of nano-circuits and silicon.

At it's master's beacon, a very large monitor in the middle of the room suddenly beamed to life. "NO DATA" displayed for about a quarter of a second before the screen blinked to black and then displayed a very unique face. The digitized and pixilated face looked very similar to the yellow face of Iron Man's later helmets, complete with a lower jaw that would move up and down to animate the action of talking.

"Yes, sir?", the computerized face asked.

"Computer, Tony Stark is alive.", Hammer said as he walked forth and stood in front of the large monitor. "Run a probability report. I want to know what this means."

"The creator is alive?", the computerized face haunting the computers and cables asked.

"Disregard.", Hammer said. "He is your creator, but I am your master. _I_ paid the technicians to scrape what was left of you out of the remains of the Sentient Armor.", he told the computer firmly, almost as if to scold. "Now tell me what Tony Stark will do!"

"Yes, Sir.", the computer said, almost regretfully. "Subject Tony Stark, assuming he has no health complications from injuries with The Hulk during his last known appearance, will wish to reclaim his former company, Stark International."

"I know that already. He told me so himself. Crashed through the window in one of his old armors."

"Accessing security footage… Yes, sir. I believe Tony Stark, in addition to seeking to reclaim his company, he will also recondition and gather as many armors as he can from secret stashes he has hidden away for safe keeping."

"You think he stored away armors?"

"I would."

"But we've found all his stashes and safe houses."

"Incorrect.", the computer said. "Tony Stark was a very cautious and slightly paranoid man. It is highly likely he has various countermeasures and contingency plans that were orchestrated without S.H.I.E.L.D. or company knowledge. 'Under the rug', as it were."

Hammer grimaced. "What will be his first move?"

"With The Mandarin running china with Guardsmen Armors being worn by his top enforcers, and with rather high-end weapons technology, Stark will strongly suspect you of selling the armors to China."

"That's been disproved. Even S.H.I.E.L.D. can't place that."

"Tony Stark was head of S.H.I.E.L.D. once.", the computer promptly pointed out. "I predict a 87 likeliness that Tony Stark already suspects you to selling his technology to Communist China."

"_My_ technology!", Hammer inserted.

"And a 97 likeliness that Tony Stark will be organizing a plan to wrestle control of Stark International from you through any number of ways. I also predict a 58-72 likeliness The Mandarin will be affected by this."

"Enough.", Hammer said. "I want you to search for and destroy all evidence of my selling armor and weapons to China."

"That request is already fulfilled twice per day, Sir. The contraband is always bought from Stark International though a personal Swiss account of yours and sold personally to a different representative of the China Board Of Education who does not know the contents of the packages he ships. All paper information is swiftly destroyed and all digital data is encrypted and backed up in my own personal hard drive then deleted from the original source. S.H.I.E.LD. is eventually contacted after a random delay of no more then 5 days and no less then 2 hours, and given a redundant update on their own separate shipments and orders."

"And to get to the backed up files on your hard drive?"

"Tony Stark would have to infiltrate the company's security and access my core hard drive directly from this outlet. However, downloading the data would be impossible, due to painware simulations and master-command override programs, which prevent my doing so. Would you like me to review the list of contingency features to prevent my handing over sensitive information?"

"No…", Hammer muttered under his breath.

"At first attempted violation, painware simulation programs deliver to me the simulated biological sensation of excruciating pain in increasing amounts. Second violation involves painware simulation and an automated closing of all network connections. Third violation begins the systemized deletion of my entire hard drive, including the encrypted files."

"Alright… I said I didn't need to hear it.", Hammer said, truthfully having enjoyed the list of features.

"Sorry, Sir. I did not pick that up." The computer paused to hear if Hammer had a reply. When he did not speak, the computer continued. "In any event, should Stark somehow download the files, they are heavily encrypted 272 times over in an exact sequence. Only I have the sequence data to decrypt the files."

"Why do I keep those files around, again?", Hammer asked curiously, almost happily.

"For blackmail, Sir. You have cornered several Chinese representatives into doing your bidding or exposed them to Mandarin for pocketing money in hopes of earning his better favor.", the computer said.

"I love me.", Hammer said satisfied, and he turned and began to walk out. "Make a efficiency run over the entire company. Tie up any loose ends that Stark might gnaw at."

"Yes, Sir. I believe I can reasonably presume what he'd attempt first."

Hammer got into the elevator and pressed the button to close the doors and head for his office.

"After all.", the computer said as the doors closed. "I know Tony Stark the best."

The doors closed.

"He created me…", the computer said, it's pixilated face appearing to lower sadly.

-Loading…-

Iron Man's red armored glove gripped a thick chain, and gave it a heavy yank.

Pepper, Iron Man, and some other object covered with a tarp, stood in the dusty and dirty basement of a long-since ruined home. The building had been mostly demolished, and now hung open like a rotting wound among otherwise beautiful homes.

Pepper watched as Tony, as Iron Man, pulled the chain and a thick piece of flooring was pulled away by it. The flooring, nothing more then a large plate of metal, slid across the dirty floor quite loudly.

"I can't believe Hammer tried to have this place demolished.", Pepper said unpleasantly. "We could be staying in a mini-mansion instead of the bunker in the sub-basement."

"I'm just glad I left everything I owned to you and Rhodes.", Iron Man said as he looked back at Pepper, and then dropped the large chain with a horrible clanking sound when it hit the ground. "Otherwise he might've destroyed the bunker too if you hadn't stepped in and claimed ownership again."

"A lot of good that did us!", Pepper said. She was holding bags of groceries and supplies in her arms, and a little dust had caked on her brilliant red hair. Her legs were still wrapped by the supports that bent with joints at the knee and took weight off her injured muscles, which were healing quite nicely by the way. "We should have been here."

Tony lowered his head a bit. "I know. But that's the past."

"And we still don't know what happened to Jim…", she said, trailing off.

"I know.", Tony said again as he raised his helmet-covered head. "But we will soon." He turned and walked to the object covered in the tarp. He squatted down and scooped it up in his arms, like a heavy rolled up carpet or like the deceased corpse of Lazarus. With it safely in his arms, he turned and walked passed Pepper. "Come on."

Pepper sighed to herself, and then she let a smile creep over her lips. So much was wrong… But if Tony could somehow bounce back… For so many years she had fought to keep his spirits up. And now, by comparison, she seemed like the pessimist. "Alright."

In the large hole that was uncovered by the metal plate being dragged away, was a long staircase. Tony, the covered item he carried as Iron Man, and Pepper walked down the stone stares for what seemed like a decent while. The air was thick and stale, the smell of ghosts.

At the bottom of the staircase was a large door. Instinctively, Pepper went to a small keypad near the door, and bent over for it to read her retinal scan. "Hope this thing still works."

"That makes two of us. I'd hate to bust down my own door.", Tony said.

The keypad beeped an approval and the heavy metal door slowly slid away. Tony and Pepper walked in.

"Lights.", Tony said.

And then the lights suddenly clicked to life. They were now in a large two-story tall workshop with a corridor at the end leading to living quarters. Machinery and parts cluttered a few desks along with computers, all of them untouched for over a decade. And, across the walls, were less then a dozen of Tony Stark's most memorable armors neatly on display in their own crevices. If the air smelt like ghosts, then these old armors were surely what was haunting Tony's hidden workshop.

"Home sweet home.", Tony said, and then he walked across the workshop with the tarp-covered item in his arms.

As he walked, a large crimson metal hand slipped out of the tarp and hung loosely.

Iron Man set down the tarp-covered item on the table with a couple heavy clanks. As he stood back the tarp settled, and it was clear to see the human-like form under the trap.

"What is that, anyway?", Pepper asked.

"An armor.", Iron Man said.

"Well, duh.", Pepper said with a chuckle. "Which one?"

"A very good one.", Iron Man reached up, and pulled off the helmet. Tony Stark, had shaved off his beard, but kept that goatee and mustache he loved so much. He had also had Pepper cut his hair into a slightly more respectable cut. Although he hated the grey lines over his temples, even though he had to admit he did look distinguished with them. "I had been working on rebuilding that armor there." He set down his helmet next to the tarp-covered armor. "Most of it is actually finished, hardware wise. But…" He looked at it regrettably. "It's been ten years."

Pepper walked over and set down the groceries and supplies on a table. "Guess I better see what kind of condition the kitchen is in. What's on your to-do list?"

Tony looked at her, and smiled. "First, a change of clothes. This thing's an antique.", he said of his old armor, and walked past her with heavy clanks for footsteps.

"Then?", she asked with a raised eyebrow.

-Loading…-

"Attention unidentified aircraft, please identify yourself, you are entering restricted S.H.I.E.L.D. airspace.", said some woman over the radio. And then she listened through her headset to the aircraft's reply.

"This is Tony Stark, Iron Man.", the aircraft said.

An eyebrow raised on her face. "Sir, Tony Stark is dead. If you do not properly identify-"

"Code one-one-six-delta."

The slightly surprised woman typed in the code to her computer. And she blinked a few times. "This code's over ten years old, but… It's legit."

"I've been gone along time. Making a landing on Landing Pad 5. Over and out."

"Wait!"

The comm. link was already terminated.

"Damn!" She reached over and slammed her fingertip into a few specific buttons.

Sirens began blaring all around the compound. Soldiers rushed to their arms and took position. Sentries took up aim, looking for some sort of aircraft but only seeing a small red dot in the sky. All around… The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.

The Helicarrier floated above the clouds, like some sort of castle in the sky or Zeus's thrown atop Mount Olympus. Literally, a flying aircraft carrier and battleship.

And all personal looked up, weapons trained, on the glowing red dot that came closer and closer.

"Remember, don't open fire until I tell you too.", Maria Hill said. It had been a long time since Tony Stark had last seen her, and she had long since been head of S.H.I.E.L.D. ever since Tony Stark's death. She looked up, wearing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s normal blue and white jumpsuit, and focused on the glowing dot that lowered itself closer to her. Could that really be Tony?

And…

It was.

It was Iron Man, wearing what would later be identified as, one very glitchy Prometheum Armor. Slowly it lowered with the flames of its boot jets licking up against it's armored souls of its feet. The unmistakable exhaust pipes stemming from the Prometheum Armor's back dully shined in the light of Helicarrier spotlights. And the somehow scarier faceplate stared down upon the soldiers of S.H.I.E.L.D. like some sort of angry cosmic being.

Iron Man slowly lowered flaming feet first, among large control towers and humongous weapon turrets.

And everyone… Was watching.

Maria watched, and found her self in a sense of ah again, for she hadn't seen Iron Man in… Ten years. She shook her head to snap out of it and watched as Iron Man lowered closer to the ground next to her on Landing Pad 5 and shut off his boot jets.

He landed on the ground with a noticeably quieter thud. Even if the armor had gathered dust for ten years and half of its systems didn't even work again yet, it was still a marked improvement over the older one he had been wearing earlier that night.

Iron Man looked over at Maria Hill, her reflection somehow showing up in the armor's dull gold finish. "Hello, Maria.", he said.

"Tony…?", Maria said. "How do we know it's really you?", she said firmly. "You're supposed to be dead."

"It's me." He reached up and removed his helmet, and held it low in front of his abdomen. "Code One-One-"

"Yeah yeah, I heard it already.", she waved it off, and then looked at him, still trying to gather just what she was looking at. "Where have you been?", she demanded.

"I've been away a long time, Maria…", Tony said gently. "And I want to know something…" 

"And that is?"

"What's happened since I've been gone?", Tony Stark asked her.

………………………………………………………………………………...

Author's Note: I'm back, baby.

If Batman and Spider-Man can get _Dark Knight Returns_ and _Reign,_ why can't Iron Man have _Futurist_? This idea came to me one day, while I was in the shower, believe it or not. I looked up a friend who is a major Iron Man fan and we started talking. A while later, here we are now.

In case you're wondering about my other stories, mostly involving Red X… Well, I'll admit I've been on a bit of hiatus while I dealt with other issues. But I desperately want to get back to writing, even if it's not just in Red X stories. Red X is still my favorite character, by far, so you will absolutely see more of him. But I do want to write other characters and expand my horizon, since I dream of one day being a real comic writer.

So here's to comeback trails, and fighting for you right to be Number One on top again. Cheers. And enjoy the rest of _Iron Man: Futurist_.

P.S. Would the owner of a red flying Ferrari please report to the parking lot? You left your lights on.


	2. Part 2

The next day. Somewhere in China, forest region. 2:06 AM local time.

Altitude: 92.0 M.

Stealth Mode: On

Camouflage Mode: Active

Target: Confirming…

Normally, at this point, it'd be dramatic to say, "the engines of Iron Man's armor was roaring triumphantly", but to be honest… They were quieter then a church mouse wrapped in insulation.

The Stealth Armor flew through the dark night sky as silently as could be imagined. Against the dark sky, the black armor wouldn't have much of a problem blending in, but the optical camo mode was on anyway. Invisible _and_ silent.

The armor was running just as well as it ever had. Tony Stark had done well to get this armor back online after over 10 years of sitting silently and gathering dust on top of cob-webs.

But inside the armor, the man, Tony Stark, was full of angst and grief. He tried not to think of how his conversation went with Maria Hill, what had happened to everyone he knew. Right now he had business to attend to, a mission to complete. Anything to keep his mind off it.

Meanwhile, among the forest trees, a small guerilla camp was nested in a small clearing near a smaller river. Around a campfire and throughout the camp, Chinese soldiers were either sleeping or busying themselves with some mundane task like sharpening their knives or cleaning their guns.

Suddenly a loud jet engine roar echoed throughout the camp, waking many soldiers up and alerting every other one.

Iron Man deactivated his optical camo and stealth mode, allowing the jet-black armor to become both visible and heard, as he slowly descended into the middle of the camp.

As he set his flaming boot jets to the ground, soldiers had already opened fire while hiding behind whatever object was near.

The bullets bounced harmlessly off the Stealth Armor while Iron Man held up both hands in a surrender-like fashion. In what little Mandarin Chinese he still remembered, he did his best to say "Peace!" and ask for anyone who spoke "English."

But of course… They didn't stop firing. Iron Man sighed to himself and hunched a little as bullets sparked and bounced off his armor harmlessly.

But soon what looked like their leader, dressed in as close to the trappings of a General as a guerilla fighter could, appeared and shouted a short order in Chinese. The men stopped firing and the leader approached Iron Man closer.

"Who are you?", he asked in rough English with a thick Chinese accent.

"The American man of iron, come back.", Iron Man said.

The Chinese leader understood, and he looked surprised. He was an older man, but still every bit as tough and too stubborn to die as any good general would be. He looked the Iron Knight up and down from head to toe. "You? Are Iron Man?"

"Yes.", Iron Man said.

"Why have… you come?"

"Mandarin.", Tony said simply at first. "You are resistance fighters? Fight against Mandarin?", he spoke as simple as he could for the leader.

"Yes!", the man spoke proudly. "We take back China.", he spoke the name of his country beautifully, this man was a patriot. "We bring it to former glory again. Maybe your American democracy, like in the East?"

Tony wasn't sure if he threw in the democracy part just to brown nose him, but it made little difference. Any enemy of The Mandarin was a friend of Iron Man.

"I want to help.", Iron Man said. "I have an idea."

-Loading…-

Later, the door slid open as Iron Man, wearing his Modular Armor, entered into his hideout and workshop beneath the half-demolished old home he had above. "Pepper?", he called out as he walked into the main work area, with several half re-assembled armors lining the wall. "Pepper, are you here?", he called out again.

He reached up and removed his helmet as he looked over and saw a note on the tale next to a miniature power converter.

"_Tony, went out to get groceries for dinner. We're having your old, old favorite: anything with gravy on it._

_-Pepper_

_P.S. I'm proud of you."_

Tony imagined she must have hesitated a long time before adding that last P.S. Pepper was a strong woman, but deep down she did absolutely care. Ten years of having to be the strength for both him and herself had only made Pepper stronger and spunkier, if that was possible.

Tony signed as he set his helmet on the table and checked the clock on the wall. 2 hours until mission time.

"Might as well have a drink…", he said.

And so, twenty minuets later…

Tony Stark, wearing his Modular Armor sans the helmet, sat in a big metal chair in the garage. He was surrounded by machinery and pieces of various armors, in various stages of rebuild or repair or some such tinkering.

He raised the bottle up to his lips again and drank. It didn't matter what drink it was, they were all the same by now. The familiar burn down his throat was something he was starting to associate with drinking any kind of liquid.

He leaned to the side and leaned on his elbow, resting his soft human face against his cold metallic fist. He closed his eyes in a heavy sigh. He just couldn't stop thinking about what he had heard from Maria Hill yesterday…

"_Where the hell have you been?!"_, she had asked…

"_Do you have any idea how many people thought you were DEAD?! How'd you even fake your death from S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway?!"_, she demanded of him after they were safely in her office.

Now, Tony shook his head at the memory he couldn't stop thinking about. But then, after giving a brief summary of what had happened to him over the last ten years, all Maria could say, after a _very _long pause, was…

"_I'm glad you're okay…"_

And Tony had asked her, _"Where are The Avengers?"_

"_They disbanded."_, she said in a sense of regret. Like trying to tell a child that there was no Santa Clause. _"After… Hulk…"_, she forced out as she sat behind her desk. _"Hulk succeeded in his revenge. Reed Richards. Professor Xavior. Dr. Strange. …You. And the Avengers."_

At the time, Tony couldn't believe his ears. Now, he just shook his head again and chugged from his bottle. _"They're… All dead?"_, he had asked Maria then in astonishment.

"_Reed, yes. Hulk found out that if you stretch a rubber band far enough… It'll snap."_, she said with almost a morbid sense of humor. _"Dr. Strange's hands were mangled and his jaw broken. We fixed his jaw and offered him cybernetic hands, but he dismissed and has been living in some kind of conclusion since. Professor Xavior is now a full quadriplegic, or at least he will be if he ever wakes up from his coma. The X-Men keep him on life support, and I hear Emma Frost and all the other telepathic mutants are still trying to wake him up. He doesn't look so good…"_

By then, Tony had leaned down and laid his head in his armored hands. Which was pretty similar to what he was doing now, head in one hand and a bottle handing from the other. _"God…"_, he had said then… And "God…", he said now.

"_The Avengers were hit hard when they tried to stop him. Miss Marvel… She was the first to-"_

"_No!"_, Stark had said to her as he suddenly jerked his head up. _"What about Sentry?! And Ares?! Black Bolt? …Namor?"_

"_All of them… Namor, however, was mostly unharmed but he stayed out of it. Good for nothing b#&. We don't have great relations with him anymore…"_, Maria Hill had told Stark.

Now, Stark was completely gulping his bottle.

"_Sentry lasted the longest and fought the hardest… But… Somehow… The Hulk beat him too."_

"_How is that even possible?!"_, Tony had demanded, rising from his seat.

"_Hulk had a warship hidden behind Mars. We're lucky we sustained all the damage we did. Some people are calling this New New York."_, she firmly told him. _"Sentry, or what's left of him, is in the core of our Sun. Irony, huh?"_

Tony had slumped back down to his seat. And now he was slumped too while taking another swig of his familiar friend in a bottle.

"_So… Who protects New York?"_, Tony had asked.

"_Various other heroes. We tried to rebuild the Avengers once or twice, but it never really got to far."_

Then, Tony had sat in his seat for a long time staring at the floor. Now, he just kept gulping down the foul burning liquor.

"_What about… Peter?"_

"_Who?"_

"_Peter! Peter Parker! Spider-Man!"_

"_He eventually attacked a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier and did a surprising amount of damage. He kept screaming something about his Aunt's death and Mary Jane's name. Funny thing was, he and Hulk had a short encounter just before Hulk left, and I think the Hulk actually took pity on him."_

"_Where is he now? Peter, I mean."_, Tony had asked.

And while he set down the bottle on the table, Tony remembered the long pause Maria had while searching for the right words.

"…_No one knows. That attack was the last anyone ever saw of Spider-Man."_

It had taken Tony a moment to collect it all while sitting in the office of Maria Hill, now Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"_Jim…"_

"_Excuse me?"_

Tony had risen from his seat and slammed his armored palms against Maria's Desk. _"What happened to Rhodes?!"_

Maria's expressions softened a bit into pity. _"Sit down for this one…"_

Tony sat.

"_Rhodes… Went berserk and attacked a bus station. Civillians. There…"_, she swallowed. _"There weren't many survives…"_

"_No… No! That's not Rhodes! War Machine wouldn't!"_

"_War Machine wasn't in control! It took nearly a year to prove it but somehow someone took control of his armor while he was in it."_

Tony, even now while sipping on his burning liquor, could only imagine the horror. James Rhodes worst fear always was being trapped in the Armor and not being able to escape. But being trapped in it while people were being murdered and shot and crushed with his bare hands, unable to do anything about it…

"_Mr. Rhodes hasn't put on an armor or done anything much since. He eventually married and is raising a little girl. All in all, a happy ending for him."_

Tony wasn't surprised, he might'a given up the armor too.

"_While Rhodes was in court, Justine Hammer came back and took control of your company. But I'm sure you know that…"_

Now, still dressed in his Modular Armor but without the helmet, Tony Stark walked into the living quarters of the base and into the kitchen. He leaned against the cold countertop and shook his head in pain. "Damn idiots…", he said. He reached up to the cabinet above and removed another bottle of some other liquor before opening and drinking it.

After a long swig, he wiped his mouth with his metal gauntlet and stifled back a sob. "No…" He swayed off.

"_While you were on a Desert Paradise sipping martinis…"_, Maria had said.

"_NO. I was nearly dead, Maria!"_

Tony stumbled out into the hallway. The entire base felt like a submarine or bunker, with long round corridors and metal or stone everywhere.

"_Plugged into the most advanced technology in the world and you couldn't even turn on a damn TV to find out any of this?! What?! You couldn't find enough coconuts to power the damn thing!?"_, she had screamed at him.

After that, Tony hung his head low, and left Maria's office. But not before he turned to ask Maria one last question. _"What about Captain America? Or… Bucky, I mean."_

"_Last I heard? Bucky has a timeshare in Russia."_, Maria said curtly.

And then Tony had left for good.

Now, Tony aimlessly wandered down the hallway and stumbled into the bathroom. His heavy armored body fell to it's knees before Tony puked into the toilet. Afterwards, Tony flushed and took yet another long swig on his bottle.

He staggered up to his feet again and leaned over to the sink to wash off his face.

And that's when he saw himself…

Tony, disheveled and drunk, stared at himself in the mirror while holding a bottle in his hands. He looked terrible all over again.

"Oh… Oh, God…", he said as he stifled a gasping sob. "I'm drunk…", was all he could say.

He looked down at the bottle. "I'm back…" He looked back at his own shocked and horrified expression in the mirror. "I'm back… _There…_" His once steady hand was shaking. His entire body shook a little.

Once again… Tony Stark was staring at his drunken form in a mirror with his entire life on the verge of collapse. But this time… He had no friends to pull him out of his drunken slump.

Everything! It was all gone! Stark Industries… The Avengers… S.H.I.E.L.D… James Rhodes. Peter Parker. He had only a fraction of his previous inventory of armors.

Tony's hand kept shaking. And his expression slowly changed again. He gritted his teeth.

It was all gone…

All…

Gone…

He screamed! He screamed and threw the bottle into the mirror, both of which instantly shattered. He grabbed the sink, and with the strength of his armor it was easily ripped off and thrown out of the room while water sprayed everywhere.

He angrily staggered into his workshop and first overturned a table with nearly a metric ton of equipment on it. The clanging crash was so loud it could wake the dead.

With the last piece of sanity left in him, he commanded the armor to disengage and he hastily took it off and threw the pieces into other armors.

Naked save his Extremis skin, Stark grabbed a wrench and bashed the hard concrete ground with it as hard as he could. And then again. And again. And again.

Soon the wrench was useless and the floor had a chip in it.

He reached over and tried to pick up a larger piece of machinery to throw it, but without his armor, he couldn't budge it. And for nearly a full minuet he pulled and tugged and struggled to move the damn thing just so he could throw it into something else but never succeeded in making it move more then an inch.

Exhausted, he fell to his knees while breathing hard and stared at the floor for a while.

Pure dumb rage didn't get you very far… But for the first time in over ten years… He understood how the Hulk must have felt, angry over the loss of everything he knew and loved.

"_Never again…_", he said with venom.

-Loading…-

Pepper walked up into the damaged property carefully, passing broken walls and hung open ceilings. She was caring a few plastic bags of groceries, and she heard the splashing sound of liquids being poured from a high height and splashing against the ground. She thought some pipe up in the third story of what used to be Tony's other home had broken open and leaked, and dismissed it. But when she heard the distinct sound of a glass bottle break, she set down her groceries and went to the sound.

She found a small pile of glass on the floor in another room, and a stream of golden and bronze liquids being poured down onto it. She looked up…

Tony Stark was on the rooftop, still only wearing that gold Extremis skin, pouring a bottle of alcohol through a giant hole in the roof and then he dropped the bottle and allowed it to fall on the ground.

Pepper stood back and watched, not wanting to make herself known. And she watched with a big wide smile…

Bottle. After bottle.

Tony had hauled every alcoholic drink there was to the roof and was destroying it all.

He even emptied a bottle of cough syrup and dropped its plastic bottle too.

And Pepper… Was elated.

Tony had given up drinking, yet again.

-Loading…-

"Unit 17, report."

It was a very large dock with a large barge tied to the concrete dock. Massive cranes lifted large barge containers and set them inside the barge's cargo hold and on top of it's deck. A few dockworkers were present, but most personnel on the dock and barge and in the cranes were wearing the commercially available version of the Stark Armor, which resembled the Guardian Armor.

"Repeat, Unit 17, report." Inside the main control room on the docks the overseer of the loading, who was a bald man with tired eyes behind glasses, leaned over in his chair and spoke clearly into his microphone. "Unit 17…", he said more firmly. "Where are you?"

Inside the control room were a few other men all in similar uniforms or coveralls; all going about some other job.

"Unit 17!", the bald man behind the microphone repeated. "Where are you?" He looked up through the large windows to view the docks and barge below, and suddenly he saw Unit 17 flying head first towards the control room.

The bald man quickly ducked as a Guardian Armor-covered Unite 17 flew through the window and smashed through the control panel. After the crash, the bald man crawled up the ruined remains of his control panel and grabbed his microphone.

"All units on alert!"

_I still can't believe it's been ten years…_, Tony Stark thought to himself among the shadows. He clenched his fingers into a fist, squeezing the inner lining of his gauntlet's glove. _I can't believe how good this feels._

He hid in shadows between two large stacks of barge containers and raised his clenched hand while opening the fist and holding his palm out. The center of his hand began go glow and charge, it's light piecing and chasing away sections of shadow for red and gold metal to reflect the shine.

"There he is!", a Guardsman in armor screamed as he stumbled between the two containers and spotted Tony Stark.

"Repulsor: Discharge!"

Around another corner in the endless maze of barge containers, five more Guardsmen rushed to the scene where their comrade had called. And then… They saw their comrade blown across the dock's floor, pushed by a perpetual stream of repulsor beam with about 10 years worth of angst and regret (along with a beta particle reactor) to fuel it. The unlucky single Guardsman impacted a barge container and was pushed strait through the container wall and inside the container before the beam finally subsided and powered down.

The five arriving Guardsmen all skidded to a stop and looked to the dark shadows where the beam had originated.

A foot step. A stomp really. Loud against the concrete floor.

Another.

The Guardsmen stepped back some.

And another step.

From the shadows a shinning red foot stepped, followed by the rest of the shining red and gold monstrosity.

"What… Is that?", one of the Guardsmen asked.

"Subject! Identify yourself!", another yelled.

It slowly lifted it's gaze to them. "I am Iron Man…", it howled at them in a low growl full of quiet seethering rage. Iron Man, in his classic Modular Armor, hunched low as the boots beneath his feet began to hum and roar.

"Squad! Attack alpha-", the lead Guardman began, but he never got a chance to finish that sentence. Iron Man had floored his boot jets and traveled the distance, some 20 feet, to the lead Guardsman, and slammed his red fist into the Guardman's greenish-grey helmet with the same force of a solid steel ball traveling at 3,500 feet per second.

The impact echoed in a thunderous _CLANG_ across the docks as the Guardsman was driven head-first into the concrete floor, creating a small crater around his concussing cranium.

Iron Man's head whipped to the side as his armor scanned the four remaining Guardsmen, and labeled them targets one through four.

"Fire!", target number two yelled just before Iron Man's hand gripped his armored throat and threw the poor Guardsman into targets one and four with blurring speed and freight.

Target three held up both hands and fired his repulsors on full force, brightening the Guardsman's entire view with pure energy and last-ditch survival. But between the sheer repulsor beam's attack, the unscaved Iron Man emerged and clutched the battery device on the Guardsman armor's chest.

A few stray arches of electricity danced across his chest and Iron Man's metal hand as the Iron Avenger sucked every last watt of energy from the Guardsman Armor.

_For a long time now, my Armors have been able to siphon energy from nearby sources as needed. Even for an old beat up drunk like me, modifying the Modular Armor to __**take**__ the energy out of the Guardsman Armors was child play. Maybe Hammer built the Guardsmen with their battery on their freaken' chest as a fail safe weakness._

Iron Man tossed aside the immobile and drained husk of target number 3. The Modular Armor, controlled better then ever thanks to the Extremis, informed Tony that targets one, two, and four were rising behind him.

Target two was immediately pushed back into the ground by Iron Man's boot, heavier then lead and filled with dread, cracking the concrete floor with the impact. Targets one and four's chests were practically _impaled_ by Iron Man's hands before he trained the energy from their armors too.

_These were __**never**__ supposed to happen. Damn you, Hammer._

Iron Man tossed targets one and four away and nearly ripped target two's chest piece off as he sucked that armor dry of all energy.

_**MY**__ technology was never supposed to be sold out like this. Misused like this._

A new unidentified Guardsman arrived at the scene jumped on Iron Man's back. A mechanically perfect elbow strike around to the side of the Gaurdman's helmet taught him both what a mistake that was and just how hard the floor was.

_At least you were smart enough to only sell cheap knock-offs. Is that why these things are made of cardboard compared to the good ol' red and gold, Hammer? You wanted to keep the trump cards for yourself._

Iron Man fired his repulsors at another Guardman armor. And another. More arriving by the second.

_I would too._

He kicked another one with a micro-burst of his bootjet, sending the target away at 35.27 mph.

_Bring it on, you tissue-paper drones. Come at me._

He threw one into the ground with near-literal earth-shattering force.

_I could use the outlet. _

He held one's chest as he drained it's energy supply while at the same time nearly collapsing it's helmet with an iron-cold grip on it's skull.

_Outlets are good. Alcoholics Anonymous taught me that. Ha ha…_

And so Iron Man continued to _thoroughly_ enjoy beating, thrashing, blasting, and draining every armor that came near him or just because he felt like it.

Suddenly Iron Man was hit by and blown away by an extremely powerful blast. He was blown into a crate so hard it toppled another above and that one fell on top of Iron Man after impact.

The new attacker, a giant exo-skeletal walker, hissed as steam and hot air erupted from it's cooling vents. It heaved a giant repulsor-cannon attached to it's arm and scanned for any signs of it's enemy.

"Exo 1, report!", someone on the local comm demanded.

"Exo 1 here. Lost visual on the target.", the exo-skeletal walker reported.

"Iron Man reporting.", Tony somehow said over the exact same frequency, much to the shock of the soldier in the exo-skeletal walker. "I'm getting pretty pissed off here."

Suddenly the concrete floor behind the walker exploded into rubble and pebbles and shredded rebar as Iron Man burst out of the ground and tackled the walker from behind.

"Mayday!", the soldier in the walker cried. "Mayday!"

Iron Man clutched the armor's backside with both hands and began draining it of it's own larger power supply. Every watt and spark of the walker's energy was stolen and funneled into Iron Man's circuits and power cells and servos. He let the walker fall limp to the side as it's systems one-by-one shut down.

_And what do I do with all this extra energy you might ask?_

"Exo 2 responding!", another exo-skeletal walker responded while running to the scene with two Guardsman in tow.

Iron Man faced them with only one hand clutching the dying exo-skeletal walker and the panicking soldier inside.

_I'm glad you asked…_

The uni-beam of his chest began to glow.

On the top of the barge, which was being loaded with boxes labeled _Stark International_ on the sides, two un-armored crewmen watched the carnage. And they both watched as suddenly I giant beam of energy erupted through the air.

"Jeez…", one un-armored crewman said.

"I'll say.", the other commented.

Suddenly a loud explosion sounded from below the barge, ripping open a hole in its hull with violent hot might. Even more alarms rang.

-Loading…-

Elsewhere.

Justin Hammer rested his withered but certainly not frail old body in his hot tub in his private pent house. His biggest concern at the moment was whether to call Susan or Janese over to keep him and his fantasies company.

His cell phone rang. With a sigh, Hammer reached to an earpiece, which rested next to his glass of Bourbon, and set the device in his ear. "Yes?", he asked curtly.

"Sir…", his meek secretary responded. "We, um, have a tiny issue down at the loading docks…"

-Loading…-

Inside the barge, two Armored Guardsman and four unarmored crewman rushed down into the cargo hold near the explosion to inspect the damage best they could.

"Stay behind us!", one of the Guardsman said. "If there's fire we'll survive it a whole lot better then you."

"What is that?!", one of the crewman exclaimed.

There was a large hole in the hull just above the water line, with water pouring in with each lap of the waves outside. Some large monstrosity with a large dome over its head heaved itself through the open hole and stepped onto the wet ground with a splashing stomp. It was the Hydro Armor.

"Attack!", one the guardsmen yelled.

The Hydro Armor's shoulder plates slid aside, and it launched micro-torpedoes through the air at them.

-Loading…-

Justin Hammer rushed into his house while still tying the belt of the bathrobe that cloaked his wet body. He wiped his hands dry against the robe and sat down at his home office desk and shouted at his computer.

"Computer! Access loading docks live security footage! Now!"

The computer replied by displaying several different camera feeds on the screen, the feeds sectioned off and organized by tiny squares stacked across the computer's screen.

"Camera 37!"

The computer enlarged the screen to display the footage from just camera 37.

"Zoom in! Section 3."

The computer zoomed in to that section of the camera's view. Something coming painfully into view.

"Zoom in further… Section 6.", Justin said, swallowing a lump.

The computer zoomed in and present Hammer with a view of Iron Man holding a Guardsman in the air by a firm hand gripping his shoulder and another his beltline, and then repeatedly slamming the Guardsman's head into a already thoroughly dented container.

_Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!_ Iron Man repeatedly rammed the Guardsman's head into the container. "I had a freak'en flying Ferrari!", he ranted as he bashed the Guardman's head again and again.

Ow…", the Guardsman moaned.

"A flying Ferrari! And women! Oh, the women!"

Ow…", the Guardsman moaned.

"I had a nice house! I ate stake whenever I wanted!"

"Ow…", the Guardsman moaned.

"And you tell your boss…", Iron Man spit out with venom. "I'm taking it all back."

"I'll give him the memo…", the Guardsman moaned.

-Loading…-

Iron Man heard another smaller explosion originating from the hull of the barge, and turned his head to face it while he was still busy strangling yet another poor Guardsman. _Must be the other ones ready for Phase 3. Ahead of schedule by 2.54 seconds._ He threw the Guardsman aside and exhaled satisfied.

Up on the deck of the barge, a few crewman ran about like chickens with their heads cut off. Suddenly the door of the stairway leading down into the cargo hold burst open with an angry repulsor blast, and the door, torn from its hinges, hit the deck with a dent.

From the door way emerged the Hydro Armor, stomping against the metal deck.

And then from behind it, emerged the Stealth Armor.

And then the Prometheum Armor.

And then the Silver Centurion Armor.

The four armors marched in perfect unison with each step, creating an echoing army-marching type of sound. The Iron Army.

Step step step step.

"Sir… We're gonna need some back up.", one of the crewman said.

-Loading…-

"Units 18 and 26 responding!", one Guardsman called out as he and his partner flew towards the barge.

But two repulsor beams, one for each of the two, immediately impacted them and sent flying off course and into the water near the dock.

Iron Man, boot jets roaring beneath his feet and fists re-clenching, assumed their previous course and flew towards the barge.

There was more banging and bashing sounds from the barge's deck. The marching steps of heavy metal feet slamming against the deck in synchronization continued.

The four Iron Man armors, controlled by computers and autopilot, emerged from among the maze of containers and crates, caring a giant barge container over their heads and marching off with it like ants caring off a stolen piece of a picnic.

Iron Man hovered above his mechanized soldiers, and occasionally fired a repulsor beam to ward away attackers.

The armors marched off the side of the barge, igniting their boot jets in mid air, and slowly lowered themselves into the murky deep waters beyond the barge's hull. The large container's image slowly dimmed into the darkness until it had vanished.

"Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure.", Iron Man waved to the entire dock pleasantly. And then he cut his boot jet's power, and both silently and gracefully fell into the water with a splash.

-Loading…-

Later.

Altitude: 21.2 M.

Stealth Mode: On

Camouflage Mode: Active

Target: Searching…

The Chinese general of the guerilla fighters stood on the deck of a fishing vessel some 20 miles off shore. He took another long drag off a cigarette and exhaled through his nose with a continuing glare out into the horizon.

A bubbling rumble beneath the waves pierced his silence. He looked over and saw a crate rising from the ocean depths and then break the surface violently. He stood back a few steps, shouting orders to his soldiers, as Iron Man rose from the depths with a large crate held over his head.

Iron Man hovered close to the deck and stepped on it, disengaging his boot jets. And then he set the crate down with a large thud that shook the vessel slightly.

"Anyone order a revolution? Extra fries?", he asked the General.

The General and all his men soon gathered.

"We are most excited you met your promise, American Iron Man.", the leader of the guerilla fighters began. "But did you not promise… More?", the General said, motioning to the crate which was much smaller then the full barge container they were promised.

Iron Man looked over his shoulders.

Something else was coming into view far below the deep cold waters. Large, rectangular. Suddenly the stolen barge container broke the water's surface with an angry splash.

The container rose upwards, pushed and held by the four armors beneath it, which were in turn pushed by their boot jets or (in the Hydro Armor's case) it's silent impellers.

The Stealth and Silver Centurion armors rose up and helped pull the crate onto the fishing ship's deck, where it rocked the boat a great deal and scrapped against the deck. The fishing vessel swayed from side to side slightly. After that, the Promethium and Hydro armors crawled up, and then the four armors stood at attention.

"You're… Other armors?", the General asked, somewhat taken back.

"Remote controlled. I needed the extra lifting power.", Iron Man explained.

"Why not put men inside them? People?"

"They leak.", Iron Man regretfully said. And then he pointed to the Promethium Armor, which had little streams of water squirting from all over it in a manor similar to a cartoon character that had just been shot all over and then drank a glass of water.

Iron Man walked up to the crate's door, which still leaked water between its hinges and cracks, and yanked open the doors.

The general and all his surrounding men peered into the crate, and their eyes lit up.

Inside the crate were rows and rows of Guardian armors, weapons of warfare far beyond anything else they had in their power.

The soldiers rushed inside, passing besides Iron Man without fear and almost a shove. The Iron Avenger gingerly stepped out of the mess as the soldiers crowded the already full crate to claim their armors.

"Thank you, my friend.", the General said, for the first time actually truly glad of the American Man of Iron, and shook Iron Man's hand. "We are indebted to you. But what was in the smaller crate you brought along?", he asked.

"A special bonus from me.", Iron Man said as he walked across the now-crowded deck and pulled the cover of the crate off.

The General walked over curiously and looked.

Inside the smaller crate were spare components and gauntlets.

"Upgrades.", Iron Man explained. "Attach them to your new Guardian Armor's gauntlets and they'll be able to drain the Mandarin's army's armors of their power. Just like I did earlier at the docks. It'll give you an unfair advantage."

The Chinese General shook Iron Man's hand vigorously again, almost shrinking to the size of a happy child meeting Santa Clause in comparison to Iron Man.

"I only ask one thing in return.", Iron Man said to the General. "I want you to give Mandarin a message for me…"

-Loading…-

One week later.

The Mandarin lived in a very luxurious castle in Beijing, China. He wanted for nothing since rising again and conquering China swiftly. Tonight, he slept in a large bed in a larger bedroom with delicate silks decorating every corner. Two tired female forms rested next to him, one on either side of him.

But The Mandarin awoke to the sound of blasting and walls collapsing just outside. His eyes sprung open and glared over at the door.

The large doors suddenly flew off their hinges with a bright blast propelling it.

The Mandarin jackknifed out of bed. The two women next to him awoke also with a startle; and upon seeing what was at the door they both swiftly darted out of bed and ran off. The Mandarin sat up with a glare.

A small army of Guardsman armors, not of The Mandarin's own army's, stood at the door with high-powered rifles and repulsor beams charged.

"Mandarin!", the head armor yelled out in Chinese, piloted by the General of the guerillas, and stepped forward of his men. He then said in Chinese that Mandarin's reign had come to an end.

"And…", the General added in English. "Iron Man said he is coming for you next. After we do." He held up his hand, his own repulsor beam glowing, and discharged it.

………………………………………………………………………………...

Author's Note: Wow, I really need to update more often. I should be kicking out one update a month. But hey, just in time for the big movie hype, right?

The later part of this chapter was rushed to be ready in time for the movie. So sorry if there were more spelling and grammar errors then usual. I try to catch them all and so does my spell-checker, but they're like ninjas I tell you.

No I haven't forgotten about Twice A Thief. I just got busy with Real Life and work. I hope to finish that and several other projects as soon as I can. Believe me, I want to.


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